Everybody HURTS

25.01.2011, Hurts (UK), Kalev Sportshall, Tallinn (Daisi Part - MuKriErikursus 2010 VKA)

The british syntpop duo Hurts was performing on 25th of January at Kalev Sportshall. At first the concert was planned for a smaller venue called Rock Café, but the promoters brought the event to the three times bigger Kalev Sportshall because of the massive interesst of the audience. British gentlemen – Theo Hutchcrafti and Adam Anderson – were supported by our hometown band Shirubi Ikazuchi aka Silvi Pilt.

Hurts is a british syntpop duo from Manchester, which includes the composer and singer Theo Hutchcraft, and the keyboards player and guitarist Adam Anderson. After their first band “Daggers” were broke up in 2008, the 25-years old Adam and 23-years old Theo started new duo called Hurts. Quite recently, on 23 of August 2010, Hurts published their second single „Wonderful Life“, which is still their  best known song.

There was a big line front of Kalev Sportshall when I finally got there. Thankfully I got in quickly because of an invitation I had. Everybody intruded in the first minutes and suddenly the whole wardrobe was falling down. Fortunately they solved that problem in less than ten minutes.

It took about two hours before the support band started to perform. The lead singer was wearing a beautiful dress, so the audience were baffled. I m quite sure that this concert was a huge step to the music business. The sound was suprisingly good considering that it was the first concert in Kalev Sportshall.

About one more hour waiting when finally Hurts showed up. Hurts got a very warm acceptance by the audience. Who would have ever believed that this concert will be their biggest until this day. Usually they have performed for about a thousand people, but in Estonia there were about 4000 people listening them.

Hurts played all of their best known songs like “Stay”, “Blood, Tears and Gold” and ofcourse „Wonderful Life“, which is the most emotional song of their repertory. In the end of the concert the audience called them back to the stage and they played one more song called „Better than Love“.

Hurts has its original movement on the stage, which describes the band most. In addition Hurts have one back up singer, who is 2 meters and 13 cm tall. When I told it to my friend she didn´t belive it at first.

The concert lighting were in accord with the band‘s style. They tried to use classical colour combinations. Like I said before the sound was good.

Hurts performed about one hour, which seems too short for a live-show, but actually I know that they didn´t have more songs left.

At the end of the concert the public was running to the wardrobe to get their clothes fast, but anyway some people had to wait about one hour to leave from Kalev Sportshall.

Everybody HURTS means that it seemed to me, that this concert was bruising absolutely everybody, including the audience, the promoters and the band themself. Also we can read this in their blog: “Tallinn! Estonia! Too much emotion for words. A true spectacular. 4000 beautiful bleeding hearts. A new homeland. Aitäh, Aitäh, Aitäh!”

Daisi Part (UT VCA Student of Cultural Management)

The longer estonian version of this review participated in the contest IN FOCUS OD YOUNG CRITICS 2011 I round (www.luubiall.ee).